FW: WVU FB: Coach Dana Holgorsen Press Conference

[Bryan, Taylor]

Taylor Bryan
Baylor Football Communications
Taylor_Bryan at baylor.edu<mailto:Taylor_Bryan at baylor.edu> | @TaBryan<http://www.twitter.com/TaBryan> | 254-710-3538 office | 254-709-4411 cell

From: Michael Montoro [mailto:Mike.Montoro at mail.wvu.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2017 4:31 PM
To: Bryan, Taylor <Taylor_Bryan at baylor.edu>
Subject: WVU FB: Coach Dana Holgorsen Press Conference




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West Virginia University

Coach Dana Holgorsen Press Conference

October 17, 2017



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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (October 17, 2017) – West Virginia University football coach Dana Holgorsen addressed members of the media on Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2017, at the Milan Puskar Center Team Room.



Opening Statement

It’s the first time in six years that this is a little more challenging of a week with Baylor based on my experiences with what I have known Baylor to be and what they currently are. There are a lot more unknowns than there have been. Where we’re going, how we’re traveling, where we’re staying, what the stadium is like, all that stuff we get, but from a coaching perspective, program perspective, it’s a little different situation. We’re going to have to do a good job with our guys this week of making them aware of all that – what the new schemes are. Coaches, I don’t have a whole lot of familiarity with any of their coaches. There’s just nothing in the past that I can pull from, which is odd in the Big 12. Usually, everybody you play in the Big 12 you have a whole lot of knowledge from the past that you can pull from. This is different, so we have to do a good job as a coaching staff of researching who these guys are, researching what their philosophies are. Luckily we have six games to be able to pull from and obviously we’ll do that.



Offensively, the one thing we do understand is some of their players. They are a lot of the same guys that have lined up for these guys. We all know they’ve recruited pretty well over the last several years. We’re familiar with their quarterback; they made that switch in Game 3 or Game 4, somewhere in there, but Zach Smith is a good football player, tough kid. He was out there last year and we hit him a lot and he kept getting up, kept playing and gave them a chance to win. He’s throwing the ball well, he’s big, he’s a good player.



They are still deep at running back and receiver. The new kid they have, the (John) Lovett kid, freshman from up here in (New) Jersey, he’s a really good football player. They are giving it to him a good bit, more than any of them. They want to give it to No. 22 (Terence) Williams, we know all about him, played against him for the last couple of years. He was hurt for the first three games, I believe, but he looks to be getting back into a rhythm. He was one of the best backs in the Big 12 as far as I’m concerned, so having a couple of them is always something we’re going to have to deal with in the Big 12 and those guys are as good as any of them.



At receiver, they still have guys that you look at and they look like ones that’ve been there for the last five years. They’re long, can run fast. I know No. 14 (Chris Platt) was out, got hurt against OU, I don’t know what his status is. But No. 15 (Denzel) Mims, he’s the guy that has all the numbers right now. I’ve heard this stat from Tony and a couple of other people this week, they have five or six 60-yard deals. That’s not surprising because the speed that they recruited around there for so long, you’re going to have guys that can stretch the field. They’re getting into rhythm up front as well, they have some new guys sprinkled in there, so it’s no different than us. When you sprinkle in some new guys, it takes some times from the camaraderie point of view to be able to understand what the guy next to you is doing. I see them getting better up front as well; they pose some challenges. They get into a lot of different formations, they want to run the ball, but some of these games they’ve gotten behind, they’ve had to probably throw it a little bit more than they wanted to. So, we’re going to have to get a good feel of what their plan is going to be. I would imagine that they’ll try to run the ball against us just like the last couple of teams have done and like I said after the (Texas Tech) game, we have to do a better job of stopping the run. That’s what our mentality has been here for the last four years and it needs to continue to head that direction.



Baylor defensively, Coach (Matt) Rhule is a defensive guy, he got Temple to a point where they were leading the country in defense. He’s playing a lot of different guys, you kind of know what their philosophy is. They’re a four-down team that wants to pressure you hard up front, their linebackers are extremely aggressive. They’re led by No.1, the Taylor Young guy that seems like he’s been there for eight years. He’s kind of an undersized guy that is one of the better middle linebackers in the country. He really does a good job. Like I said, he’s not new to us, we’ve been going against him for the last four years. He’s a heck of a football player and he makes them go. But defensively, they’re giving up some plays because they’re playing a lot of people. Whether one guy is out with an injury or whatever forces them not to play all their guys, I don’t know, but they’re playing a lot of different people and they’re going to continue to get better.



Kicking game, their kicker has a lower-leg injury, the second week in a row we’ve had some uncertainty as far as what’s going to happen with their kicking situation. Their field goal kicker is really good, the Connor Martin kid, he’s almost perfect on the year. But they’ve had to change punters and they’ve had a couple of different kickoff guys. So, we’re going to have to sort through that. I sit up here every week and talk about punt return and kick return and they have guys that scare you. No. 13 the (Tony) Nicholson kid, he leads the league in punt returns and they have a variety of guys they put back there on kickoff returns as well.



It’s going to be a challenge for us; I’m looking forward to flying to Fort Worth and spending the night in Fort Worth. I don’t mind a night game at all; I know everybody here wishes we’d have a night game but there’s nothing we can do about any of that. Hopefully, we keep winning our noon games, which we’ve been solid on that. But we need to better at night, we’re 0-1 at night, so let’s change that. We’re 0-2 in Waco, so that’s a lot of motivation to be able to change that. I don’t care what their record is, any time you have everything that is just so new, there’s going to be an awful lot of improvement. We have to be prepared for a wild homecoming atmosphere, night game. The last time they played there at night they should have beaten Oklahoma, that’ll grab your attention. What they’ve done to us the last two times there will grab your attention. The respect that we have for Coach Rhule and his staff for what he did at Temple, which we’re pretty familiar with that based on geography, we have to understand that they’re going to continue to get better and better and better. They compete hard. They play hard and they compete hard, so I’m looking forward to the game and looking forward to us focusing on us and trying to get better of what we’re asking our guys to do, coaches and players.



On if momentum can carry into the next week

I think it can carry from week to week. There’s a confidence that tends to exist when stuff like that happens. It’s awful hard for that to happen throughout the course of a whole game against a good team that’s playing well. (Texas) Tech was playing well, they’re improved. You go in and turn the video on and sometimes you look at yourself or the opponent and it doesn’t look very good. I can’t say that we looked bad; I can say that they looked good. I thought they played really well. It’s hard to do that for a whole game, just like for them, as well as they played for three quarters, it’s hard to do it for a whole game. The momentum got going in the fourth quarter and I couldn’t be prouder of how our guys took that and just excelled on everything in the fourth quarter, complete domination. We caught breaks, expected good things to happen, executed very well, played with great effort, and had a lot of confidence. I would hope that would carry over. I think that’s going to give us confidence moving forward.



On how you can protect a team against depth issues

It doesn’t look to me that they have a lack of depth, it looks like they have a lot of depth. They’re still dressing 70; I don’t know what their numbers are that they’re playing but they’re playing a lot of people. They’re playing more people than we’re playing. Now, I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I think our depth is decent, but offense-defense, our depth isn’t what it needs to be. Our backups still haven’t shown they can go in there and play at a very high level. With that said, that really helps special teams efforts and I think our special teams are doing a good job with the number of bodies that we’re playing. We’re able to play a lot of guys. It makes it really challenging to practice when you don’t have the depth that you want. Like I said, I don’t know what their numbers are. We’re sitting at 120-something, so our practice depth is really good. We have two-deep on our scout teams that go out there and can roll in a lot. That’s really helping the way we practice. What their situation is, I don’t know. It’s not for me to know.



On if depth impacts a coach’s game strategy

I don’t think it impacts the game strategy, it impacts how prepared you are to play. All through camp and the spring, how you prepare, I’ve never been happier with the way we prepare for games because we have so many guys that can go out there and get us the looks that we need. If you don’t have that depth, then it hurts your special teams more than anything and it hurts the way you practice and prepare for a game.



On the overall health of the team

I couldn’t be happier with where we’re at when it comes to that.



On if Baylor can be compared with anyone else in the Big 12

I don’t know. They do different things than the rest of them. There are similarities with what everybody does. It’s a very vague question. We can talk schemes if you want. They do a lot of things on offense; they can look like a spread team or they could use tight ends and fullbacks to look like a power team. I know Coach Rhule likes to run to run the ball and will use tight ends and fullbacks and all that, but then they can flip the switch and go four-wide and throw it all over the place. Defensively, like everybody else, they play a four-down front and have a lot of bodies they rotate in there and can mix things up in the secondary and then can switch it and go three-down front on you in a hurry. There are similarities with everybody when it comes to schemes; there’s only 11 people out there.



On if Coach Rhule’s philosophies can work in the Big 12

What he’s doing is still a work in progress, I think he’d probably be the first one to tell you that. I didn’t go back and study much Temple stuff just because I knew we were going to have six games to be able to go on. Four-down, there’s so much three-down in this league that the four-down aspect of it is a little different than what we practice every day to what Texas Tech gave us and what Oklahoma does. It’s more of a four-down deal, which is what Kansas State, Oklahoma State does so much. Scheme is one thing, but, to me, good coaches are who teaches really good technique. Whether you’re a good coach or not is whether you can teach technique. The assignment aspect of what the schemes are, there’s a lot of good, creative coaches out there that can come up with a lot of good, fun stuff, which we’ve done that around here for a long time. But can you get your guys to play with great technique like Gary (Patterson) does at TCU defensively? We talked about that last week, what they did wasn’t really that tricky. Being able to sustain blocks and all that, that’s what makes them pretty tough. So, I think he’s probably pretty good at that.



On if a coach has to adapt to the league or if a league has to adapt to a coach

That’s a good question. This league has probably been known for coaches adapting to the league more than the league adapting to coaches. If you just look at who has been hired and what everybody does offensively, I mean Kansas State is spreading it around, throwing it some. I don’t know, time will tell on that. Like I said, I think what makes a good coach, where I used to think how many good, creative plays you can draw up, I don’t really think that too much anymore. That’s (offensive coordinator) Jake’s (Spavital) job and he’s doing a good job of it, that’s (defensive coordinator Tony Gibson’s) job and he’s doing a good job of it. For head coaches, it’s probably a little bit more of the whole body of work and how hard your guys play and what the basic fundamentals are.



On the importance of having a good running game on the road

It’s critical. It’s not any more important than at home, but it’s critical. We need to run the ball better; I mentioned that after the (Texas Tech) game. I told the team that on Sunday and we’ve addressed it and we’re going to work hard on that. You have to have the mentality that we’re going to run the ball, which I didn’t see last week. I saw it in the fourth quarter – that was good. I think we’re capable of it, we’ve done it before this year. We need to be able to run the ball and that’s a team mentality that we’ve worked hard over the last four years to get our team to understand that running the ball is important. Stopping the run is important. You can’t just say that, you have to have that. We’ve had it, that’s why we’ve won a lot of games the last few years. It doesn’t need to go away. It went away last week with the exception of the fourth quarter.



On if he could pinpoint why the team struggled to run the ball last week

Like I said, I think it’s a combination of mentality and (Texas Tech) being in a good spot. Their mentality was in a really good spot as a team. I don’t think our mentality was just awful, but their mentality was really good as a team. I think we could really pinpoint that and see this is how you’re running it and how you’re stopping the run. They were much better at that for three quarters. We were much better at it for one quarter. That’s one thing that affects the game. What did we do last week? Well, we finished really well, finished really well in the fourth quarter, finished drives pretty well offensively and defensively. We finished blocks and tackles pretty well. There are other things that go into it other than just having the appropriate mentality of running the ball. I think ours needs to be better.



On if keeping the quarterback in the pocket has been an adjustment for the offense

We’re a different offense. Another thing I think good coaches do is they take what they have and they can adapt to it. (Redshirt junior quarterback) Will (Grier) is doing some unbelieve things in the pass game; he’s pretty good in the run game too but I’m not going to turn him loose like I turned Skyler (Howard) loose. Skyler was really good in the run game, we talked about this a lot. What made him a good quarterback that won a lot of games as our starting quarterback was his understanding of the run game and not only having to make them account of him, but also the checks and all that good stuff. We’re a different team on offense, but that still doesn’t excuse the fact that our mentality wasn’t where it needs to be in order to be able to run the ball.



On if he’s surprised that defenses are loading the box against them

Everybody wants to take away something. That’s every defensive coordinator’s mentality saying we’re going to make them run it to beat us or we’re going to make them throw it to beat us. You try to make them be one-dimensional. It’s what everybody tries to do, whether they can do that or not, I don’t know. I’m tired of talking about (the run game). We have to improve it. It’s not just bad because we do have the Big 12’s leading rusher or close to it. We’ve done some good things, I’m just talking about a mentality that needs to exist moving forward if we want to continue to win games.



On if it’s a battle to avoid looking ahead to future games

Yeah, it is. The fact that we’re in a conference that for nine straight weeks, and hopefully 10, that you better play really well or you’re going to get beat. Just look at the league, look at the records. That makes it hard, yeah. I don’t care if you’re playing a 1-1 (Texas) Tech team or an 0-3 Baylor team in-conference, I don’t view it any differently. You can say it’s easier for us to get up against TCU than it was against Tech; there’s a lot of just a human element to it that makes it harder. This game is going to be hard; they’re all hard. You can say they’re 0-6, but that doesn’t make it harder. It’s the fact that you turn on the video and you watch these guys fight tooth and nail every time they play, that makes it harder. There are some unknowns that makes it hard, playing on the road is hard, we haven’t won there. They came within one point of beating us last year out here when we had won nine games. They have good players, their facility is unbelievable. They have a lot of positives going on, too, so every game is hard. I don’t know even know who we play next week. You don’t need to tell me either because I really don’t care.


On what all the Big 12 players being named to the Midseason All-American team, including junior wide receiver David Sills V, says about the league
I’d say there is pretty good quarterback play if the one that we have is not being mentioned. And it’s not surprising; Oklahoma and Oklahoma State are both playing pretty well and they have good quarterback play. TCU has good quarterback play. You turn on the video from what (Oklahoma State receiver) James Washington did to Baylor and it looks pretty good. He looks just like Justin Blackmon. He could have had like 400 yards. They had a day offensively. I had some pretty good days in Stillwater and this one blew it way out of the water. He is a good player. David is doing a great job. It is a great story and a lot of people are taking notice of it. I am proud of him, but he has a long way to go. We have a long way to go offensively to continue to improve. But it says a lot of good things about the Big 12.

On junior wide receiver David Sills V
He just loves football. He isn’t scared of anything. He loves the game, things are slow for him. He is a starting quarterback, with a starting quarterback’s mentality at a receiver’s position. He sees things. He is a hard worker. He is going to keep getting better and better, which is scary. That midseason All-American list, for what it’s worth, has everything to do with the number of touchdowns. I could critique his play a little bit if you need me to. He has a lot to work on. He knows it and the relationship and timing that exist with him and (redshirt junior quarterback) Will (Grier) is fun to watch. Hopefully he can keep scoring touchdowns, we are going to need them. We need to score points in this league.

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